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Top lane is by far the most miserable lane to play in right now.

Nayzumi··58 votes·7,845 views

Taken it's always been a shithole, but let me explain in further detail here:

  • You're legit not allowed to play aggressive by any means because the enemy jungler ganks the lane at the 2:30 mark, if you live through said gank, they'll be up top again until you either blow a summoner, or kill you.

  • You have the pleasure of being a fighter against a Range ADC (Vayne, Quinn), or something like Teemo, Panth, etc, where laning is completely and utterly unfun.

  • Any tank outdamages you in all stages of the game, regardless of who you're playing.

  • You get 4 manned at least once per 2 games, if not 3 manned every game.

  • Playing on redside in top lane is complete bullshit, i'm just going to point this out. You have 2 ways of getting ganked, whereas blue side only has one. Here's the even better part, you're not even allowed to ward twice before the 3:30 minute mark unless you buy a fucking control ward as you walk out of base with one, ruining your laning phase all together.

  • 9 times out of 10, you're playing something immoble, so you're prone to ganks anyways.

  • If you get ganked and die, the jungler will just push the wave with your lane opponent and take the tower by the 6 minute mark because Demolisher exists.

I could go into further detail, but TLDR; remove the option of junglers being able to gank at the 2:30 minute mark, stop letting tanks outdamage everything, and getting 4 manned is a real fucking pain in the ass.

89 Comments

Eedat34 votes

A lot of the stuff you're saying applies to most lanes. I'm a top/Jung main myself.Don't go agro if you have no idea where the enemy jungler is. You know if he started bot side he's gonna be looking for a gank top just before minute 3. Don't waste your wards. If the enemy jungler just showed bot, don't use that opportunity to go waste your ward. You know he can't be top for at least a minute. I see people do this shit all the time. Legit waste their wards when we have vision of their jungler killing scuttle on the other side of the map. Don't waste your pink when you have a wave about to crash into your tower when you know damn well the enemy top laner is just going to go clear it. On the flip side if you just shoved a wave under the enemy tower you have 45 sec to a min before it pushes back out. Go do something. Go roam mid. Go put a deep ward in the enemy jungle so you don't get ganked. Do something. This shit happens all the time where the enemy top laner just stands there watching me last hit under turret instead of doing literally anything else. Why? Why do people legit waste their time doing stuff like this? If you play the waves correctly you can roam mid and get back and only have lost 2-3 creeps.

The thing I've noticed about other top laners is that they try to play the game like it's 1v1. League is not a 1v1 game. It never was and never will be. Get over it. Ranged top laners aren't some infallible Gods that have no weaknesses. You can't just blind pick anything and not expect to get punished. If you pick Darius into Vayne you're going to have a bad time. If you pick Vayne into Wukong you're going to have a bad time. If you pick Wukong into Darius you're going to have a bad time. Does that mean any of these champs are busted top lane because they have winning and losing matchups? The only time it's a problem is when champs win the vast majority of matchups which is when you get stuff like Ornn and Jayce.

The majority of things you described apply to every lane. "Two gank paths for top lane" same for bot lane and mid has like 8. "I had no idea where the jungler was and went aggressive" same for every lane. "4 man ganks" same for every lane."Playing something immobile" same for every lane and that's 100% your choice. There are plenty of mobile top laners.

I'm sorry but top lane isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. The vast majority of the problem stems from the 1v1 mentality that top laners seem to have far more than other roles.

kargish6 votes

Although I agree with just about all your points, you gotta admit that top lane has the least impact on your soloQ performance. As jungle you affect all lanes, bottom you get to be THE carry or the one influancing the carry's performance, and as mid you can snowball and roam. Top lane doesn't have anything significant that impacts the game for the team, and that's just because of positioning. In general and without special picks, top lane doesn't scale as hard as the other lanes does, and the objectives you can grab are rather small. Rift herald was an improvement for a top laner's team impact, but even so it doesn't matter that much and also spawns later than bottom lane dragon.

Ironically though, what makes top lane bad can also make it good, since it's positioned so far away from anything important, if you're a splitpushing god and domination your lane, you can impact your team by making them fight 4v3 and grab objectives far easierYorick Nasus Trundle Darius

Skias1 votes

{quoted}

Although I agree with just about all your points, you gotta admit that top lane has the least impact on your soloQ performance. As jungle you affect all lanes, bottom you get to be THE carry or the one influancing the carry's performance, and as mid you can snowball and roam. Top lane doesn't have anything significant that impacts the game for the team, and that's just because of positioning. In general and without special picks, top lane doesn't scale as hard as the other lanes does, and the objectives you can grab are rather small. Rift herald was an improvement for a top laner's team impact, but even so it doesn't matter that much and also spawns later than bottom lane dragon.

Ironically though, what makes top lane bad can also make it good, since it's positioned so far away from anything important, if you're a splitpushing god and domination your lane, you can impact your team by making them fight 4v3 and grab objectives far easierYorick Nasus Trundle Darius

Take Darius out and this is correct.

TS Media3 votes

You just conveniently missed the parts where YOU'RE shoved in CONSTANTLY 24/7, your jungler NEVER ganks, the enemy jungle spam ganks you, dive you under tower consistently, having to concede a shit load of cs and the rest of your team simply NOT caring about you. Then when the enemy does ALL of that shit you mention, you get the blame, you STILL never get help AND you're expect to have the SAME impact around the map as the enemy top laner after getting set so far behind, the only thing you CAN do is sneak cs here and there and pray you don't get ganked by your laner and his boyfriend/s.

Lets expand a bit further here:

Side lanes are now shoving after all of the above happened and being the top laner with TP, you're expected to go clear the wave. You get to the wave and their tanky ass top laner comes and mauls your ass as you attempt to run away. Oh, but they have too much cc, slows and %health damage making it next to impossible to escape if you're a fighter/brusier. OR, you try to clear the wave and have pressure but have to immediately back away the second the tank comes running through. OR, you end up getting SOLO'D by EVERYONE, even the damn SUPPORT (hi brand, velkoz, xereth) because of how far behind you were.

Playing fighters is a no go. The only way you win with Fighters (eg fiora/riven/even damn yasuo/wukong) is IF you're vastly better than the opposition now. Most of the time, your teammates are going to be carrying hard af and you're only doing the ONE job that you have. Splitting, applying pressure and forcing uneven fights (which half the time doesn't even work). Tanks should NOT be able to solo fighters and probably brusiers at ANY point of the game (I mean, I'll allow them to take early/first items, but after you get your core item that should be the end of the 1v1 tank shenanigans), that's beside the point of what tanks are meant to do. I'm not saying fighters/brusiers should MELT tanks, but they should be enough of a threat where the tank goes "I'm only here to stall the push". The fact tanks are outright dueling the duelist themselves is downright oppressive considering:

  1. You get bullied in lane
  2. If they forego farm to match you wherever you go, then you lose any of the even fights
  3. They scale equally or as hard or harder than you do
  4. They have high base stats overall as well as decent scaling and sweet syngergy with tank items, factoring in you have to get items to match them so they don't maul you to death, you delay bigger item buys on certain brusiers/fighters

Don't get me wrong... top lane isn't USELESS... as long as you're playing a front line tank like Ornn, Maokai, Malphite or Shen. If you pick a fighter and they have anyone decent on tanks... lmfao, goodluck.

I could go into more detail and get down to the nitty gritty, but that's for an entire post on it's own if I do decide to do it. But I think we have enough "Top lane is garbage" post. I switched from top solely to jg and right now, I'm having a FAR better time doing so.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

Wukong lose most of top lane matchup tho... Vayne isn't even played top, and even in this case, cause its 1v2 lane, vayne with a decent jungler will f*ck Wu hard. Ranged will easly setup dive situation during early.

But anyway its not even the issue of toplane... game is already decided in ten first min (8-9 tbh).... But its decided on the other side of the map.

As say earlier (by Kargish) Herald was an improve... But even without it tower fall fastly to most champ even tanks thanks to BS like demolish.

I'm sorry but top lane isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. The vast majority of the problem stems from the 1v1 mentality that top laners seem to have far more than other roles.

is it a joke ?

and wouldn't care about the 4 men top... but contrary to other laners we are alone and without wave clear. This is the great difference :

  • Bot are a duo so even with 4 man against them is manageable most of time... unless they're already low (hp)
  • mid are range and have wave clear. 4 players can go mid and just waste their times if they want to pressure a Ziggs/Xerath.
Reformedfindlay21 votes

Jungle needs to have a less healthy first clear IMO

Harden Stepback2 votes

this x1000

Eedat13 votes

The top tier junglers need to have a less healthy first clear. This has always been the issue. There are plenty of junglers that get pretty low from the first 3-4 camps which makes ganking an actual risk. A blanket nerf is going to do nothing but shove struggling junglers completely out of viability while the top tier ones stay top tier

Verxint2 votes

The idea is that some junglers have strong clears for early ganks but trade lategame or teamfight power for it. The problem is that early jungle clears are so powerful there's no reason not to play one that can gank at 2:45. A blanket nerf would actually help lower tier junglers because the top tier ones wouldn't be guaranteed the early pressure that makes their pick worthwhile.

Eedat13 votes

No it wouldn't. It wouldn't "help lower tier junglers". These junglers already struggle with early clears. A blanket nerf would make them an absolute free kill from an invade and make their early pressure that is already lacking completely non existent. And on top of that they clear even slower, still have less pressure, and can't scale up for teamfights. A blanket nerf hurts lower tier junglers waaaaaaaayyyyyyy more than the higher tier ones

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

Wukong main spotted XD

but i definitly agree.

Crede7772 votes

They need to have a slower first clear. The problem is that junglers are ganking at around the 2:30 - 3:00 mark while they are level 3 and the top laners are still level 2.

As a top laner, I'd like to have access to all 3 of my abilities and have a better sense of how the matchup is going before I get ganked from behind or even dove.

If I'm winning my lane and am pushing the lane, I know I need to pay more attention to getting ganked. If I am pushed in to tower, I should be safe for a little while.

Penns10 votes

Schrödingers top lane, people say the jungler always ignores it because bot is way better to gank, but others say the jungler always camps top because its so snowbally [sg-poppy]

Janna Me Fiddle6 votes

{quoted}

Schrödingers top lane, people say the jungler always ignores it because bot is way better to gank, but others say the jungler always camps top because its so snowbally [sg-poppy]

It's more the top lane always gets camped by the enemy jungler while your own jungler doesn't punish it by counter ganking bot or taking dragon away.

Then your mid laner falls asleep and their mid laner also roams up to camp you as well forcing you to leave the tower.

But your Jungler is far too busy with dem Juicy wolves and your mid laner is too busy trying to decide what item to buy because they B'ed after pushing out the wave to actually counter the pressure with punishing objectives, so the tower falls for free.

But it's not the top laner that gets to snowball off it, they're still irrelevant.

The Jungler and mid will snowball their ADC off it when your own team could have punished the hell out of it and got bot tower for free.

But nah, playing Macro is too much like hard work.

THE RlVER KlNG8 votes

8th option: you're playing against nasus and he obliterates you at level 6 with a shroud or kindlegem or sheen no matter who you are playing or how

NocturnalSheild7 votes

Play a tank? Or a ranged poker? Or a mage?

Sounds like playing literally anything other then a melee fighter would fix 90% of your complaints.

Take karthus top its a blast.

Mordepool15 votes

{quoted}

Play a tank? Or a ranged poker? Or a mage?

Sounds like playing literally anything other then a melee fighter would fix 90% of your complaints.

Take karthus top its a blast.

The issue of not having a viable lane for immobile fighters is not solved by your statement

Skias1 votes

{quoted}

Play a tank? Or a ranged poker? Or a mage?

Sounds like playing literally anything other then a melee fighter would fix 90% of your complaints.

Take karthus top its a blast.

This is basically Inting.

NocturnalSheild1 votes

Wut? Other people playing them are super op breaking lane but you playing them is inting? I’m so confused.

Or do you mean karthus because he has a positive winrate top.

Skias1 votes

{quoted}

Wut? Other people playing them are super op breaking lane but you playing them is inting? I’m so confused.

Or do you mean karthus because he has a positive winrate top.

What the hell are you talking about positive winrate? He's got a 50.1% Win rate top and steadily dropping. He's dropped 12 placements this patch alone. He's basically promised a loss. He's garbage in team comps too. To say he's positive doesn't include how he doesn't fit any comps and is basically a liability.

http://www.op.gg/champion/karthus/statistics/top

He's absolutely atrocious solo top. You are literally inting picking him top. He has no good match ups. Riven, Ornn, Maokai, GP, Fiora, Camille. They all shit on Karthus. Also he has literally no way to escape a gank because of the distance on the lane. His wall won't do anything.

He's at 48% winrate in Gold and Plat as well. He's basically dead at 50% in Plat+.

NocturnalSheild1 votes

Whew. Never thought is see the day where 50% WR (perfectly balanced) is "basically promised a loss"

I forgot you top laners think anyone under 56% is shit.

Skias1 votes

{quoted}

Whew. Never thought is see the day where 50% WR (perfectly balanced) is "basically promised a loss"

I forgot you top laners think anyone under 56% is shit.

You also hamstring your team with one less frontliner in a meta that requires multiple. Karthus doesn't fill any useful role top.

swanington5 votes

Just play vlad

[vlad-salute]

no to toxic1 votes

Play Vlad Lose the game cause you just played a farm lane against a tank who is now beefed to the max thanks to not being diked on.

Disembark3 votes

Vlad outscales tanks. Vlad outscales pretty much everyone in both teamfight and 1v1.

GhostOfTsushima4 votes

Hate to agree but yeah

That's literally my story every time I play Top when I was on my team. My jungler never ganks top, while the enemy top laner has help 24/7. I'm just sitting there waiting for my jungler to gank and when I call for a gank he would go bot like there's no other lane. Also the fact that my bot lane is also calling 24/7 for camp cus they think its Bot lane meta.

I thought playing Top lane in a more team environment would be less complicated but its more complicated since my jungler suck so bad

Verxint5 votes

I don't even care if my jungler does or doesn't show up. But for the love of god do something with the pressure I'm drawing

Velgam3 votes

{quoted}

I don't even care if my jungler does or doesn't show up. But for the love of god do something with the pressure I'm drawing

THIS! SO MUCH THIS, Im getting ganked every 2 mins, my jungler says he doesn't gank top, I say well fine, go help mid or bot, he does neither.

DBS Ronovon1 votes

Get better at telling your bot or mid lane to play lame so JG can gank or set up a TP gank after you shove in Top lane.

Åeolus4 votes

Maybe have some map awareness? XD You should know when you're going to get ganked, if you don't that's your fault. Literally everyone in high elo has a general idea where the enemy jungler is. If you die to ganks that's a mistake on your part.

Verxint5 votes

I'm pretty sure only people who don't play top lane say this. If you're red side top lane you're vulnerable to dying to a gank even at max XP range.

Åeolus1 votes

No jungler can dive at level 3. He needs to learn how to manipulate minion waves. I have no idea what you're saying honestly. And I've played Ahri top lane last year to diamond 5 so I know what I'm talking about. This whole board really mystifies me. You guys do not understand the game and blame it on various things such as it being "unblanaced". No, it is and you can't climb because there's something you're doing wrong. There were plenty of challenger top laners last season and I HAVE SEEN NO ONE in high elo complain about this.

Verxint2 votes

"I played Ahri top" "I have no idea what you mean about being vulnerable to ganks" Gee I wonder if these two are related

Åeolus1 votes

His most played champion in normals is Vladimir . Is he really an immobile top laner? Can you really not let the wave push into you? It's not like he has Tristana's passive.

Verxint2 votes

To be clear on the topic of wave pushing - One thing the OP specifically referring to is the ability of junglers to get level 3 and gank your lane before you're even halfway through level 2. This is a lose-lose situation - if you let the other guy push, they can get level 3 and you risk two level 3 people zoning you away and crashing a wave into your tower, or even chunking you. If you push, you just might get 3 with the enemy jungler but will be horribly overextended.

Wave management past that stupid point is fairly straightforward, though it gets tiring having someone constantly trying to shove me in and I can't seem to get my jungler to understand it's an easy gank while the enemy jungler shows up multiple times despite me being pushed in because they want to reset the wave.

It's overall a miserable experience where it doesn't feel as much like you can win the lane, just like you can avoid losing and hope your team wins.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Everyone in high elo complains about this. Well aren't NA junglers a meme anyways at this point? EVERY meta jungler can dive at level 3. Elise, lee sin, kha, xin zhao, every single tank jungler especially with aftershock.

Also: I play ahri top. I mean. For real. Ahri isnt gankable mid why should that be the case top? Noone risks getting kited under turret+charmed.

Dasdi964 votes

Please continue to spread the awarensss of the oppression of top lane fighters. This has gone for too long.

KennysDreamGirl4 votes

i havent read everything yet but had to corect you here.

"You have the pleasure of being a fighter against a Range ADC (Vayne, Quinn), or something like Teemo, Panth, etc, where laning is completely and utterly unfun."

with these champs there is no lane to be fun or unfun

z63XnLCMwX3 votes

It's simple. Illaoi and collect a double kill or never see the enemy jungler.

DBS Ronovon1 votes

I beat Illaoi with Garen

T4underbolt2 votes

Top lane is in really sad state. I queued up this morning with primary top and secondary mid. I got instant match found. Literally 0:00 and got top. In other games 30 seconds at best to find the game. That says something. I even get autofilled top more often than support lately.

SilentBomber2 votes

To be fair with everyone.The fighting class struggles a bit.Champions that scale late game have to farm their as s and hope that either their bot lane will win and carry or their jungle will help them.

For a month now,players have been screaming that fighters' items are the most expensive in game.Thus,they can't fully scale unless you spend 40+ minutes playing the game.

Top lane is the most random lane in the game.Every kind of matchup is possible.Old MR and ARMOR allowed you to survive against multiple hard counters.Now it's a clown fiesta.A game of "who will counter who first".In most of my games all junglers gang bot first.Many times i got countered hard and my jungle would refuse to gank a perma pushed lane.

The lack of options is what made top miserable and not specifically junglers or whatever.

Dingding1232 votes

No tank outdamages a bruiser.

They do out-dps bruisers though, in the sense that a bruiser is usually dead by the time their next rotation is up in a teamfight. Bruisers have it rough.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

XD Yeah im sure that 20% max hp of ornn doesn't outdamage a bruiser. Or the 250 base dmg mao Q. Or malphite. Or cho.

Thilmer2 votes

Junglers need to lose this stupid safety net called "extra experience out of nowhere".

Rigth now a jungler can gank every 30 seconds for no particular reason without penalti, since when a jungler is behind jungle monsters give him/her more experience, so basically you can do 10 failed ganks in a row and not falling behind.

In the past, doing two stupid ganks in early could mean that jungler was going to be two or three levels behind the rest of the champions for the whole game. Now junglers basically have the rigth to camp a lane, and that lane is going to be top in 90% of the cases since is full of champions with low mobility.

Also, picking a melee and the oponnent picking any champion with ranged autoattacks means you automatically lose the laning phase. And some people keep wondering why ranged autoattacks are such a huge advantage and ADCs are almost always the strongest class...

AgeOfTheMage2 votes

not to mention, you leave lane for a few seconds and you lose a turret :I

Lowvyr2 votes

Just play Nasus or Illaoi past level 6 you will not be getting ganked

Viper0171 votes

{quoted}

  • You have the pleasure of being a fighter against a Range ADC (Vayne, Quinn), or something like Teemo, Panth, etc, where laning is completely and utterly unfun.

  • Any tank outdamages you in all stages of the game, regardless of who you're playing.

But what if you're not fighting that kind of champion? If "any tank" out damages you, then why not also just play a tank? And what if you're not even fighting a ranged character? What if you're both playing bruisers or fighters? Sounds more to me like you've just had some miserable matchups.

Skias1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Adobe Ghost,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=nOuBrf9A,comment-id=0023,timestamp=2018-01-18T18:05:08.909+0000)

But what if you're not fighting that kind of champion? If "any tank" out damages you, then why not also just play a tank? And what if you're not even fighting a ranged character? What if you're both playing bruisers or fighters? Sounds more to me like you've just had some miserable matchups.

Have you seen the top winning picks? Nasus, Ornn, Maokai and the exception is GP because he abuses klepto.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

Maybe because tanks are braindead and boring? Because tanks let you "win" lane but you are still 100% dependend on your potato team and noone wants that?

Why didnt people say "just play a mage bot if adcs are bad" and we stopped there? Why massively buff the shit out of adcs and supps to make them appealing but when fighter mains complain it's just: well play a tank. How about you go fuck yourself?

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